Of particular interest to Data Scientists was the question of whether using “bots and scrapers” for automated collection of data was deemed a violation of the law if it violated a Terms of Service. An important tool in the Data Scientists’ and Data Engineers’ toolbox, automated scraping scripts provide for efficient accumulation of data. Further, many individuals cite instances of Terms of Service being too broad or vague for interpretation.

Among the applications of these scraped data, it subsequently can be used for academic research or used to develop novel products and services that connect disparate sets of information and reduce information asymmetries across consumer populations (for example, search engines or price tracking). On the other hand, sometimes malicious bots can become burdensome to a company’s website and impact or impede their operations.